Philadelphia wins another close one

If the Philadelphia Eagles finally reach the Super Bowl this season, their tight victories the last two weeks will probably have more to do with it than their first five easy wins.

“They are so difficult to play against and I like that,” Donovan McNabb said of Baltimore’s defense after the Eagles’ grinding, pounding 15-10 victory over the Ravens on Sunday. “The margin for error is so small you feel like a 4-yard completion is an accomplishment. Stuff like that can help us down the road.”

Down the road is all that counts for the Eagles — way down the road after losing three straight NFC championships.

Given the state of the NFC, where everyone else has at least two losses, winning now seems less important for the 7-0 Eagles than establishing attitude. What better team against which to establish attitude than the bruising Ravens?

Sunday’s game was perfect for that.

Yes, Baltimore was playing without its three best offensive players: suspended Jamal Lewis and injured Jonathan Ogden and Todd Heap. But its defense was intact and relentless and the best sign for the Eagles was that they pounded back.

In fact, for three quarters, this was a game played just the way Baltimore wanted. It was 3-3 after a quarter, 6-3 Eagles at halftime and after three quarters. With few offensive weapons, the Ravens played the only way they could, hoping to force a turnover that could give them the easy touchdown they couldn’t get any other way.

It worked to a point

The defense didn’t get any touchdowns, but it prevented one when Ed Hartwell knocked the ball from McNabb at the 1-yard-line just as the Eagles seemed about to score early in the second quarter.

But Philadelphia’s defense set up a score, finally forcing the turnover that decided the game.

With the Eagles up 9-3 early in the fourth quarter and the Ravens driving about as well as their impaired offense could drive, Brian Dawkins knocked the ball from Chester Taylor and Hollis Thomas recovered at the Philadelphia 35. Nine plays later, McNabb finally found Terrell Owens for the game’s first touchdown, and after the 2-point conversion try failed, it was 15-3.

That it was Dawkins was significant.

A lot of the pregame talk suggested it was “physical” Baltimore against “finesse” Philadelphia. If there is one Eagle who’s the antithesis of finesse, it’s Dawkins, one of the best safeties in the league and the leader of the defense during Andy Reid’s coaching tenure, which began in 1999.

Owens’ touchdown dance added the obligatory sideshow to this game. It mimicked Ray Lewis, with whom he exchanged trash talk from 100 or so miles away after declining to report to the Ravens after being traded from the 49ers, instead forcing a second deal that sent him to Philadelphia.

But he talked real football afterward.

“Every game is not going to be a blowout,” he said. “With their defense, we knew it was going to be tight and difficult. But all that can do is help us later.”

That was the point. These type wins are a big help.

It started last week in overtime in Cleveland. And it continued Sunday against the Ravens.